Thursday, December 3, 2009

Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 American remake of his 1934 British thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much does not attract as much critical attention as several other Hitchcock works from this period. And yet it reveals quite plainly a growing artistic abstraction in Hitchcock that comes close to blowing his cover as an entertainment filmmaker.

The Sedative

After an unexceptional exposition, in which the protagonists are characterized as rather stodgy Midwestern tourists in Morocco, the plot mechanism is sprung when the McKennas' child Hank (Christopher Olsen) is kidnapped to keep his parents from revealing incriminating information that they have stumbled upon. Having received word of the kidnapping first, Dr. Ben McKenna (James Stewart) must break the news to his wife Jo (Doris Day).

Ben insists that Jo take a sedative before he tells her what has happened. This scene so outraged the feminist sensibility of the students in a Hitchcock class I took at UCLA in 1978 that it's been marked in my mind ever since as a political football, and it wasn't until last week that I watched it without a particular ideological reaction. What I saw was something of a spiritual exercise, not unlike the scene in Torn Curtain in which Hitchcock illustrates just how hard it is to remove life from a healthy human body.

Hitchcock's reasoning in conceiving the scene probably went something like this: "Here the characters must undergo an unbearably painful experience before they can recover their ability to act, and the plot can advance. It is usual in moviemaking to pass over this pain, or to stylize it with a brief evocation of pathos. But I don't feel right about dodging this scene: it renders this movie superficial if I minimize the parents' ordeal. What if I conceive the scene as a problem? The doctor must break the bad news to his wife, but he knows that she will be devastated. How can he get from A to B with as little anguish to her as possible?"

And so the scene must depend on duration: ellipsis will defeat the purpose. And it must confront the mother's agony. It will take much longer than a brisk suspense plot would usually permit. Jo is smart, and cannot easily be fooled. The scene is subtly structured from Ben's point of view: we see his calculations, his reformulation of plans. He tries to push a sedative on his wife with no justification, but it doesn't work: she has taken a pill too recently, she perceives that his behavior is odd, and she resists his attempt to use his professional authority to bully her into drugging herself. He therefore has to hurt her a bit: he lets slip that something bad is going on. Despite his euphemistic phrasing, she is instantly alarmed. "Here's the price of finding out," he says, holding out the sedative. Desperate for information, she takes the pill. Now Ben must drag the story out to give the drug time to enter Jo's bloodstream. She is impatient, but he manages to dawdle until she shows signs of weariness. The bomb is dropped. It's as if the sedative did nothing at all: Jo shrieks in terror and must be restrained. After this unnerving moment, Hitchcock finally permits himself an ellipsis. We see Jo lying in bed numbly as Ben packs a bag, and we realize that the drug has probably softened the blow after all.

It goes without saying that experiments in duration were not common in the American entertainment cinema at this or any other time, and that Hollywood's Master of Suspense was in fact rather an arty guy. But no doubt some regard this scene as an exercise in sadism...and it would be disingenuous to dismiss this imagined charge lightly. There is no doubt that we are being put through a painful experience at a quite leisurely pace. And yet, there is a sense that Hitchcock is putting himself through the experience with us. The scene is more about the discomfort of dealing pain than it is about actual pain or even our anticipation of it. The artist's energy is principally deployed to make us share Ben's problem, his discomfort in using unpleasant tactics on his wife. It is a little fanciful to interpret the scene as being about the filmmaker's dilemma in hurting his audience - but the conceit has some dimension.

The Concert

At the film's climax, Hitchcock once again goes experimental on us. The assassination attempt that the McKennas have inadvertently uncovered is to take place during a concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Earlier, Hitchcock shared with us the assassins' plan to fire a gun in synchronization with a particular cymbal clash in Arthur Benjamin's Storm Clouds cantata. He even played the passage with the cymbal clash three times, in order to familiarize us with the moment when the gun will fire - though we are given no information about how long the piece is or where the cymbal clash occurs in it. As Jo and Ben arrive independently at the hall, with imperfect knowledge of what will happen, we realize that Hitchcock intends to show the performance of the piece (with his composer Bernard Herrmann at the podium) without ellipsis: a nine-minute stretch.

This experiment in duration is not as emotional as the earlier one. The intended victim is an anonymous minister of a foreign country; we are encouraged to share Jo and Ben's horror at the assassination attempt, but the stakes are relatively abstract. During the performance, Hitchcock must keep a few balls in the air: he must show Jo gradually realizing where the key players are and what is likely to happen; he must show Ben arriving, and position him for his role in the action dénouement; and, above all, he must find enough variety of form and content, and create enough development, that the nine-minute visual accompaniment to the music doesn't bore us. The musical performance is elaborately documented, with various elements of the rather large orchestra and chorus highlighted at different times, and many shots of Herrmann conducting and of the fatal cymbalist preparing for his big moment.

Here the effect of the scene does not depend on the exact structure of the visual accompaniment - Hitchcock could have sequenced the footage in any number of ways - but rather on the mere fact that the entire piece is played. All suspense depends on an appropriate elongation of time, but this elongation goes well beyond the demands of suspense. Hitchcock wants us to take home some art with our entertainment: not just Benjamin's music, but the cinematic art of confronting the intractability of time.

9 comments:

Blake L.
said...

While I support the idea of experimentalism you propose here, I think you have it partly wrong on both points. By that I mean that the things you do say are accurate and insightful, but it seems to me you are overlooking what may be the most important thing in both sequences.

1-THE SEDATIVE. Dan, who did the feminists in the audience have a problem with? Hitchcock (and his writers)? If so, they were not being very objective. I don't see that the director is saying "If you think your wife will react with hysteria to something, give her a pill." This is strictly Ben's idea. You seem to support him in this, if you read you right, but the film as a whole shows a marriage with an uncomfortable element in which Jo has given up her career when she married, not so happily perhaps, and has a strength unacknowledged by Ben, which is actually the mainspring of

2) THE CONCERT. I actually like a lot what you say about the piece being played in full duration. But I don't think the visual information is any less important, especially as regards Jo, who has been warned not to do anything. Her emotions, posture, and bearing through the sequence are its lynchpin--she both wants to protect her son but also has a deep moral sense that won't simply let a man be killed, and so the dramatically cathartic scream, also, signicantly, tied to the "voice" she had abandoned in giving up her career. True, we don't care about a very minor character who is the target of the assassination attempt. But we do care about her. Along with the experiment in duration you describe, the emotion and suspense of the scene are classic Hitchcock. It really is this sequence I first think of when I think of why he is called "the master of suspense." And should add that Doris Day's performance is one of the finest in all his body of work, and is in fact one of the only ones singled out in Bill Krohn's HITCHCOCK AT WORK, which gives an elaborate and impressive consideration of this sequence including the words in STORM CLOUD CANTATA.

Although virtually everything interesting about it owes to revisions of the earlier version, this is one of my ten favorite Hitchcock movies.

Well, as Godard insisted around the late '70, Hitchcock was always experimenting. Then, Jerry Lewis. Then, nobody. But you write:"This experiment in duration is not as emotional as the earlier one. The intended victim is an anonymous minister of a foreign country; we are encouraged to share Jo and Ben's horror at the assassination attempt, but the stakes are relatively abstract."Sorry, but I don't think we care much for that fat diplomat/politician, and the stakes are not these nor abstract in the least. If Ben and Jo warn anyone and prevent the assassination, they will kill their son. The dilemma is to let the minister die or try to warn him. Quite suspenseful. This great film has been minimized both because it's a self-remake and because it stars Doris Day (who, by the way, is magnificent in her role, and singing "Che sarà sarà").Miguel Marías

Blake and Miguel: perhaps I understated the underlying conflict in the concert scene, the tension that Hitchcock wants us to feel between the urgency to act and the desire to protect Hank, the boy. And the gradual unfolding of events in the concert scene slowly ups the ante on that tension.

But I still don't think the scene is as emotional as you do. I don't think we register Jo's scream as a death warrant for Hank, and Ben and Jo don't seem to react in that way, either. If Hitchcock had wanted to put us on the level of emotional urgency you describe, he would at least have shown the parents plunged into agony after the life-saving scream. Instead, the quest continues, with the screw tightened by one more turn.

Blake: I don't think that Jo has a deep moral sense that she won't let a man be killed. I think she has an average moral sense on the subject, one that Hitchcock simply assumes, and assumes that the audience will share. Jo isn't characterized as more concerned with the moral angle than the other characters.

There is even a line of dialogue after the shooting that sticks out a bit, in which Jo explains that she couldn't stop herself from screaming. My idea of the function of that dialogue is that Hitchcock or Hayes or Paramount thought that Jo's action required a bit of explanation, that without that line we might wonder why she acted against her interest in saving her son. There would be no need for such a cue if Jo had been shown to be unusually focused on the overarching moral issues.

As regards the sedation: of course Hitchcock has already included a number of observations about tension within the marriage. I personally don't think he is either for or against Ben's wish that Jo give up her career for him, but he does seem to prefer putting a mundane, somewhat stressed marriage to the test, rather than an idealized one.

Nonetheless, the sedation scene makes no sense to me regarded as Hitchcock's critique of Ben's attitude toward Jo: the scene makes us share Ben's strategies. I completely agree that Jo shows much strength over the course of the story, but I don't see any indication that her resourcefulness and courage comes as a surprise to Ben.

I think I've come to agree with both of you that this is a major Hitchcock work.

Maybe what you call "an average moral sense" is "deep" enough. I don't think we radically disagree on that specific point about her, but what do seem to about the emotion in the scene. The reason why Bill K. singled Day out was because her emotion is the lynchpin of the scene, and standing unhappily just inside the doorway of the concert hall in the way she does, she is the emotional center of the whole sequence, the music very reflective of all that she is feeling. I'm curious, Dan, as to whether you've read Bill K. on this sequence--the words in STORM CLOUD CANTATA as he analyzes them (and the music is of course aligned with the words) becomes deeply relevant to the narrative and to the character. So the sequence is all of a piece--if it were simply abstract, I don't see how it could affect us the way it does. Also, I actually minimized a little how important Bill finds Jo and her interpreter--I said he doesn't single out many actors this way in the book, but in fact, though admiration of many is more or less implied, she is the only treated this way.

What happens after the thwarted shooting may be more abstract--Ben and Jo do suppress some of the feelings they must have, though not to the extent they are walking around as if there is nothing to worry about, and of course there is. Post-concert, the movie's only weak point (very minor to me) is revealed; we don't care anything about the villains or their plans at all, only about Ben and Jo and their son, and mostly that's where the focus is.

My original query about the sedation scene was not to suggest what Hitchcock thought about it--that's ambiguous maybe; but only to suggest that feminist audiences may be too quick to assume you supports Ben giving her that tranquilizer. I do think sometimes a critique can emerge in a movie that may be more than the director intended, and to maybe that's what happens here. Hitchcock looks at the dynamics of the marriage without making judgement about but observing its impefections. Since I personally don't support Ben giving Jo the sedative, I see it as powerful moment of someone overstepping in a relationship, but am not in the least disturbed by Hitchcock's handling of it (on the contrary), and I believe to jump to saying he's some kind of misogynistic director ruled by patriarchal attitudes is absurd, especially in context of the whole movie.

It's interesting to talk about this movie--an amazing example of how one work can be transformed into another and because of what it is perhaps the best example of how much Hitchcock had evolved to this point in career, when he was pretty consistently at his peak.

The subject of duration in cinema is of interest independently of the film, really something of crucial interest especially with the advent of digital. That's another subject but I hope you will take it up again in another context.

I'm sincerely embarrased by some of this being garbled as it was--I was a little distracted while writing it but should have read it over before sending. Apologies and here is the corrected versionfollowed by a few more thoughts.

***

Maybe what you call "an average moral sense" is "deep" enough. I don't think we radically disagree on that specific point about her, but we do seem to about the emotion in the scene. The reason why Bill K. singled Day out was because her emotion is the lynchpin of the scene, and standing unhappily just inside the doorway of the concert hall in the way she does, she is the emotional center of the whole sequence, the music very reflective of all that she is feeling. I'm curious, Dan, as to whether you've read Bill K. on this sequence--the words in STORM CLOUD CANTATA as he analyzes them (and the music is of course aligned with the words) becomes deeply relevant to the narrative and to the character. So the sequence is all of a piece--if it were simply abstract, I don't see how it could affect us the way it does. Also, I actually minimized a little how important Bill finds Jo and her interpreter--I said he doesn't single out many actors this way in the book, but in fact, though admiration of many is more or less implied, she is the only treated this way.

What happens after the thwarted shooting may be more abstract--Ben and Jo do suppress some of the feelings they must have, though not to the extent they are walking around as if there is nothing to worry about, and of course there is. Post-concert, the movie's only weak point (very minor to me) is revealed; we don't care anything about the villains or their plans at all, only about Ben and Jo and their son, and mostly that's where the focus is.

My original query about the sedation scene was not to suggest what Hitchcock thought about it--that's ambiguous maybe; but only to suggest that feminist audiences may be too quick to assume that Hitchcock supports Ben giving her that tranquilizer. I do think sometimes a critique can emerge in a movie that may be more than the director intended, and maybe that's what happens here. Hitchcock looks at the dynamics of the marriage without making judgement about it but observing its imperfections. Since I personally don't support Ben giving Jo the sedative, I see it as a powerful moment of someone overstepping in a relationship, but am not in the least disturbed by Hitchcock's handling of it (on the contrary), and I believe to jump to saying he's some kind of misogynistic director ruled by patriarchal attitudes is absurd, especially in context of the whole movie.

It's interesting to talk about this movie--an amazing example of how one work can be transformed into another and because of what it is perhaps the best example of how much Hitchcock had evolved to this point in career, when he was pretty consistently at his peak.

The subject of duration in cinema is of interest independently of the film, really something of crucial interest especially with the advent of digital. That's another subject but I hope you will take it up again in another context.

Coincidentally, in the evening after writing this I threw on a movie I had taped sometime ago, THE ATOMIC CITY (1952, Jerry Hopper), which happened to have been Gene Barry's first film as well as the director's. And it reminded me that certain things almost seem to be givens when the child of a stable couple is kidnapped in a movie, as happens here also. First, there may be a little marital conflict or tension that becomes apparent; second, while male and female tend to fall into traditional roles, they also share anguish and other emotions and are seen to be mostly harmonious in their reactions and actions they then take. But though I like Hopper as a director generally, and feel he is especially good on the intimate side of relationships in some of his other work, the script here defeats him because the initial issues (his job as atomic scientist is affecting the family and especially his son--and of course is the reason for the kidnapping), if nicely laid out, are completely left behind in final reels that are nothing but chase/rescue scenes. By contrast, Hitchcok seemed to leave himself room only in the margins of scenes to keep a focus on his characters and their marriage but managed to do it with consummate artfulness.

Also, as much alike as certain emotions and responses may be with the couples in any of these kidnapping movies, I can't think of any other one that has something like the sedative scene. So I want to clarify one thing I said before, in relation to the scene and the overall situation. I don't think Hitchcock makes any judgement about Ben giving her the sedative (although I don't support him doing it and it sounded like you do). But more important, I don't take Ben's action as symptomatic of a domineering male who doesn't respect his wife as an equal partner in the marriage, because I think overall he does. And I don't think he's an unsympathetic character either. I see the scene in context of the movie validating both characters and the marriage as a whole--and that's what makes Ben's imposition of the sedative interesting. Ben and Jo's handling of the situation in the narrative shows them to be pretty strong and resilient, and while some may see the movie as one more critique of '50s ideology and of American (or any) marriages, I don't. Of course that doesn't mean that it's mindless or unaware.

Even more interesting is this--this is the first of two great Hitchcock films in a row which treat marriage, and they are both stable and (for want of a better word) happy marriages, challenged by external circumstances. But in the second, THE WRONG MAN, no one ever offers the wife a sedative or tries to impose one on her, and tragically, she has a nervous breakdown. I'm certainly not saying she wouldn't have had that breakdown anyway, or that Jo ever would have. But the contrast is intriguing, giving that these are both Hitchcock films (and marriage, except when melodrama-driven in itself as in SUSPICION or UNDER CAPRICORN--is not a Hitchcock subject unless one goes back to a movie like RICH AND STRANGE, except in this pair) and I still believe it's wrong to make someone take a sedative in the way Ben does.

As to Albert Hall, enough said, because it's simply a question there of how much emotion one sees in the sequence and how essential that aspect is. I do think the film, like other Hitchcock films I believe are great, has its abstract side, strong in artificial elements, along with the behavioral reality it also has, but that's a vast subject and no one wants to be glib about it.

Blake - I haven't yet read Bill on this film. I certainly don't feel the scene is completely abstract (I think I said "relatively abstract"), nor do I think we're detached from Jo's dilemma. But I do think that the scene is conceived and structured in a way that isn't intended merely to promote identification with Jo. At times it feels almost like one of those old "city symphony" montages.

I don't approve or disapprove of Ben's use of the sedative. We don't have enough information about how much Jo needs it, nor about how much damage Ben's assertion of authority will do to the marriage. I do strongly agree, though, with your implication that the detailing in a work of art, and the sensitivity of an artist to the real nature of conflict, often results in work that contains evidence for whatever point of view the viewer brings to it.